They are modeling and simulating prototypical disks, and comparing the results to the Earth and the planets of our own solar system. The considerable computation involved was facilitated by the Ranger supercomputer at TACC.

Over the past few decades, the hunt for extrasolar planets — planets outside our own solar system — has yielded incredible discoveries. And now planetary researchers have a new tool: simulated models of how planets are born.

The leftover gas and dust form a disk around the star, and the particulates inside the disk begin to collide and coalesce over millions of years, forming larger and larger objects, until a planet eventually takes shape.

3D rendering of disk in the process of forming a planet (credit: Texas Advanced Computing Center)